Richard Dawkins

"The universe operates according to scientific principles, not according to our wishes."

"We should cultivate wonder about the natural world while maintaining intellectual rigor."

"Evolutionary biology reveals the deep connections among all living things."

"We are capable of overcoming our evolutionary biases through rational reflection."

"The pursuit of knowledge is one of humanity's noblest endeavors."

"We should teach people to distinguish between explanation and mere description."

"The universe is stranger and more wonderful than most fictional creations."

"We have the capacity to create meaning in a universe that has none."

"Understanding our evolutionary past can help us navigate our present challenges."

"We should value curiosity and the desire to understand as fundamental human goods."

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference."

"We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes."

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction."

"What is it that makes us go outside and look up at the stars? We are made of starstuff."

"Ignorance is not bliss, it is oblivion. You can't appreciate what you don't understand."

"The fact that life evolved out of nearly nothing, some 4 billion years after the universe began, is a fact so staggering in its profundity that I would be mad to attempt words to do it justice."

"There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point."

"I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world."

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones."

"Science is the poetry of reality."

"The capacity to find joy in the simple things – that is the gift of nature."

"Darwinism is the most powerful and the most proven theory in the whole of science."

"I am a passionate advocate of the view that the real enemy of modern man is man himself."

"What's to prevent us from saying that evolution is the way God chose to create life?"

"The universe is a cold, heartless place where nothing matters except what we decide matters."

"The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation."

"A universe without purpose may seem pointless, but it is precisely what we should expect."

"I believe that an orderly universe, one indifferent to human preoccupations, in which everything has an explanation, is far more beautiful than its opposite."

"The God hypothesis is scientifically unnecessary and intellectually unsatisfying."